The fire occurred hours after explosions rocked the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, sending towering plumes of smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions, as fighting rolls into its 227th day.
Images shared on social media purported to show fire and damage to the span. (Reuters)
Saturday, October 8, 2022
A massive fire has occurred on the bridge linking mainland Russia with the Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula.
Russia's national anti-terrorism committee said on Saturday that the fire was caused by a car bomb, while prior reports by Russian state-backed media said a fuel tanker caught fire.
"Today at 6:07 am (0307 GMT) on the road traffic side of the Crimean bridge... a car bomb exploded, setting fire to seven oil tankers being carried by rail to Crimea," the committee was quoted as saying.
Earlier, RIA-Novosti and the Tass news agency quoted local Russian official Oleg Kryuchkov as saying an object thought to be a fuel storage tank caught fire and that traffic has been stopped on the bridge.
The rail and road bridge over the Kerch Strait was built after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
Moscow uses the bridge to move weapons and other military equipment to parts of Ukraine where the fight rages on.
Multiple explosions rock eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv shortly after midnight – AP
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) October 7, 2022
US ammunition supplies dwindle as Ukraine war drains stockpiles
The US will soon be unable to provide Ukraine with certain types of ammunition that are essential to Kiev's battle against Russia, as supplies are being used up faster than they can be replaced.
US stockpiles of some equipment are "reaching the minimum levels needed for war plans and training," and restocking to pre-invasion levels could take years, Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies wrote in a recent analysis.
Washington is "learning lessons" from the conflict about ammunition needs in a great power war, which are "far greater" than expected, a US military official acknowledged on condition of anonymity.Ukraine says mass grave found in recently liberated Lyman town
Ukrainian authorities have found a mass grave in the recently liberated eastern town of Lyman and it is unclear how many bodies it holds, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said in an online post.
Separately, the Ukrinform news agency cited a senior police official as saying the grave contained 180 bodies.
Ukrainian troops liberated Lyman from Russian control on Saturday.
Multiple explosions rock eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv
A series of explosions have rocked the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv, sending towering plumes of illuminated smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions.
The blasts came as Russia concentrated attacks in its increasingly troubled invasion of Ukraine on areas it illegally annexed, while the death toll from earlier missile strikes on apartment buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 14.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes that hit one of the city's medical institutions, a non-residential building and other spots.
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
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